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Sami and Sita

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A lot of girls have either experienced this moment or witnessed this moment from afar.

You’re out one night at a party or a restaurant or at a wedding. You feel great in your new dress. You love the colour, the style, the detail. It’s a brand new purchase. Across the room you spot the same colour and your initial gaze turns into more of a longing stare. The same colour is on another girl and as she turns around you realise you may as well have a mirror in front of you as you both have the same dress on. Sometimes, this exact moment can be awkward or won’t be much of a bother. Other times, depending on where you are one of you could turn into a bit of a nasty person. No female ever really wants to be in this situation. When you go out, you want to be an individual and be the only one wearing what you have on. It is usually a blessing in disguise when you have spotted a dress in a catalogue or seen it in the window and ask for it in your size, only to be told that style has sold out. Shops like Country Road and Witchery are great for basics but they will make “that gorgeous red dress with the large bow on the right side” at least 500 times and eventually you will see someone else out in it and honestly for me, it’s a bit of a turn off.

I discovered Sami and Sita by chance in 2007. I was on a bit of a hunt to find a dress to wear to a Christmas party so in my mind I was thinking at least red so I looked a bit festive. I left Sami and Sita that day with a purchase and have been back several times most notably last November as I found my bridesmaid dresses there too.

The next time you’re in Paddington, Sydney go to William Street. It’s a little street that runs off Oxford Street and currently the Paddington Inn pub and French Connection are the landmarks on the corner. Not far down on the right hand side is the boutique Sami and Sita. They will often have dresses blowing in the wind that hang from the door to entice you in. I love going to Sami and Sita to buy dresses because they rarely make more than one size of each style so it minimises the risk of running into your twin out there. They have dresses in beautiful fabrics, prints and colours. There are minis, maxis and dresses to wear to the races, weddings, a night out with the girls, a hot date or dresses just to wear to make you look and feel great! Their prices are reasonable and on par with the larger retailers so if you have bought a dress in Cue or Country Road you can afford to buy a dress at Sami and Sita. This is me in the “Christmas dress” and you will notice it’s not a wallflower dress but a pretty bold red and white stripe print. It certainly fit the bill as I felt more than a bit festive that night and most importantly I still have yet to come across my twin in red and white.

A marriage of flavours

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Short post but need to share…

Salt and vinegar. Meat pie and tomato sauce. Vanilla ice-cream and chocolate topping. Rare roast beef and horseradish.

Some ingredients just go together; compliment and encourage their respective individual flavours. You wouldn’t really have one without the other as it wouldn’t taste quite right.

Thursday night, I ate at the Lord Dudley restaurant and came across a surprising marriage of flavours. Situated on Jersey Road, Woollahra it’s such a pretty, quaint English-style pub from the exterior and as you go down the winding stairs (making sure you don’t bump your head on the beams) you suddenly find yourself in a dining room with several hanging pot plants where people are busy talking, eating and having a mad old time. The menu is written out on a big blackboard and roves around the restaurant. At first glance I wouldn’t have necessarily thrown these ingredients together. I actually thought twice and nearly went with the herb crusted lamb chops but then ordered this at the last minute…

Snapper fillet with cauliflower mash and asparagus.

I am usually a lamb over beef over chicken over fish kind of girl but I just have to put it out there in saying that my dinner on Thursday was the best fish I have had for a long time. The snapper was melt-in-your-mouth snapper. The mash was velvety and the flavour was subtle and not overwhelming. And the asparagus as a final touch was the key.

Go to The Lord Dudley this weekend and order this meal; you won’t regret it. Happy Friday!

Gentleman prefers brunette

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Tonight will be one of those rites of passage; a once only, a night to look back on probably with a really nasty hangover trying to decipher where did I go, what did I eat, did I really do that dance on that street?

Tonight is my hens and I am three weeks away from declaring my undying love to Alisdair and passionately shouting I do! The girls threw me the dress code gauntlet two weeks ago of hunting down a “1950s Glamourpuss dress in RED”…..pretty please.

Hmmm, I thought. I immediately hit up Grandma Takes A Trip, C’s Flash Back, Zoo Emporium… the usual vintage offenders on Crown Street, Surry Hills I often go to  in order to rustle up some inspiration. If I had been asked to wear Electrifying 80s in fluoroscopic pinks and limes I would have been in Dynasty and Dallas heaven with too many shoulder pads to even comprehend. But waisted, hourglass Marilyn Monroe dresses were no-where to be seen. Enter Coco Repose, a somewhat hidden gem on the corner of Nichols and Fitzroy Streets in Surry Hills.

Coco Repose is one of those serendipity places which takes you back in time when ladies got dolled up for no reason and wouldn’t leave the house without gloves and pearls on. Ladies had their hair set and sprayed and fascinators were not just worn to Derby Day. Marilyn’s dress was blowing up over a grate, there were cats on hot tin roofs and Grace and Cary were thrilling audiences in Hitchcocks’s To Catch a Thief. Females looked like little women and Men admired them for doing just that. Coco Repose was the best destination to find the perfect hens outfit! Amanda styled and pearled me up to a tee. I tried on dresses in cherry, tomato, sunset orange, romantic lace and sexy satin. Hats were tried that were closed, opened, round, felt and flowery. Questions were posed just on the subject of gloves – to go virginal white or daring black; short or long?

Final purchase: a cherry red satin wiggle dress, a cherry red felt fascinator with bobbles, short black gloves, black suspender and sexy seamed stay-ups and velvet pointy black stilettos. Marilyn, eat your heart out as my gentleman prefers brunettes.

Go and Ugg Boot – the puzzle explained

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Shoes.

Most females love them, collect them, have them in many colours. My male has an obsession with brown ones, loafers in particular. Some like flats, some just wear heels, others wear boots year round. Christian Louboutin paints his soles red, Jesus has sandals named after him, Imelda is known for her masses, Big even proposed to Carrie with one (a damn beautiful one). All in all and I’ve known this for a long time but SHOES are a big deal. They mean something for so many people and at the very least protect our tootsies. And the best thing about shoes is that even if you’re having a fat day and you can’t even squeeze into your favourite jeans, most probably you can pull your best shoes from the wardrobe, put them on and it will make your day!

Well, what does my shoe collection look like now that I’ve spent the last paragraph leading up to this? Well at my 21st, shoes rated a mention in my speeches and at that count I believe my best friend counted out 60+ shoes. The collection has grown and shrunk and grown over the years and I now have a still relatively big but vast collection of shoes in many colours, fabrics and styles. I would probably call myself a chameleon of shoes as I’m not just a stiletto-girl or a thong-girl and ugg boots only come out in winter and in the comfort of home and never up to the corner store. Whenever I go away I like to buy at least one pair of shoes from a city or place to remind me of where I’ve been.

To wear a pair of shoes is an experience for me as is eating at a restaurant or cafe. Which is why I am going to pair the two together. Huh, I hear you ask???

Recently whilst dining at The Local, my girlfriend announced at the dinner table that if she was ever on Death Row and she had the requirement for a “last meal” then this would be it. Big statement, HUGE. Think about it; what would yours be? I’m still sitting on this one. 

So, if you haven’t yet been, you need to get yourself off to The Local Taphouse, Flinders Street Darlinghurst quick smart. Why? Because I want you to try a paddle of exotic beers that go really well with the mussels and chilli frites. Or if you’re a burger type, you won’t want to go past the lamb burger – trust me! There’s beer and cheese nights and the what-should-be-a-religion Host-a-Roast which is the simple equation of inviting maximum 12 friends and starting the ultimate decision making. Step 1. will it be lamb, beef, pork or chicken? A choice of vegies? Potatoes how do you like them? Gravy or is it sauce as an accompaniment? And are you a berry or apple crumble type? Apple crumble won the majority vote for this crew. Take all of these components and put them in a private dining room where you are surrounded by empty bird cages that adorn the ceiling, dark polished floors and intriguing black and white photographic wallpaper and you have Host-a-Roast. God, I hope they repeat it this winter!

So to sum this up… to me the experience of going to the Local is an ugg boot. Basically I’m not into stars or hats to rate or recommend to you where you should go, I will leave that up to the Good Food Guide or the Michelin Guide.

SHOES is my game. Therefore to me an ugg boot is comfy, warm, toasty, a stayer that will continue to live up to expectations year in year out. It’s Aussie but has character and I can’t wait to put them on this winter. In saying that, The Local doesn’t have to be just a place to go for winter, it’s definitely an all-year rounder but when it’s an especially cool Sydney night and you want somewhere warm that will serve up a hearty meal that’s mouth-watering head to The Local.

As you read on, I will use other shoes to describe restaurants and my experiences as I go on so it gives you an idea of how good it really is or where it may fall down and need a band-aid. I’m sure there will be a few stilettos (a great night out with the girls and terrific atmosphere), lots of thongs (excellent outdoor area, a fail-safe for summer) and a couple of wedges (a fabulous place that’s comfortable too). From time to time there may even be a Jesus sandal. Not my favourite look but may best describe somewhere I go.

I’ll leave that interpretation to you.

Welcome to eatlovego; a work in progress

Posted on by Eatlovego

eatlovego

Pull the words apart, I think put the words together. Either way these three verbs are synonymous with me and why not talk about them daily? Well that’s the question I posed to myself on Friday just gone.

To eat; strawberries, Ben and Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, fresh squid ink tagliatelle and banana fritters immediately come to mind. To love; recipe books, new Midas velvet shoes, David Austin roses, farmer’s markets and weddings are current adorations. To go; Morocco and Turkey are alluring, Tassie and Queenstown are booked but oh how I ache to go back to Paris and dine at Chez Julien at the end of the Pont Louis Phillipe bridge on the Marais side.

Put the verbs together and you are touching the silver lining of this blog.

So taste something new this week, go to Xage in Surry Hills and see how it stacks up against Phamish and live life like Cole Porter, “Let’s do it, let’s fall in love.”